20 February 2008

Here’s a quiz for you. Let’s say that your friend’s girlfriend, thinking you are the friend, asks you to come into her room. Do you “go and hop into bed and pretend to be him,” or simply walk away?

Here’s another one. Your friend and his girlfriend are having sex, and you can see them. Do you watch, or walk away?

I’m guessing you’ve never taken a quiz quite like that, but if you’re reading this you probably wish you would have. And depending on who you are, your idea of a perfect score could be wildly different. A smart and decent person would know the proper answers to these questions. But the players in the Australian Football League are seemingly having problems with these sorts of issues, prompting the league to produce an interactive DVD hoping to improve its players’ attitudes towards women. Attitudes that would make players do something like this:

In another example, a player is with a girl who has had too much to drink. "Do you: (a) get her some water, (b) call her a taxi or (c) take her back to your place for sex?"

The DVD is part of the league’s respect and responsibility program, and is actually a serious thing. Seven actors and fifteen crew members spent four days shooting it. Whether or not it will actually make a difference isn’t clear. Like mandatory sensitivity, there’s no clear indication things will improve. Rather, this video might just provide more fodder for the footballers to engage in even more hijinx.